Giving Up The Demon
by Cloverfield
Summary: It would not do for her to have illusions above her station. She was, after all, a mere swordswoman, and a halfbreed one at that. Featuring angsty, angsty Setchan.


**DISCLAIMER**: Negima is not mine. If it were, there would be an student exchange plan featuring the girls of Ichigo-sha...

**PREFACE: **inspired in part by the AMV 'Butterfly', which is simply beautiful. ("Where's my samurai?").

Konoka. Setsuna. Self-torture from a half-demon's point of view.

Short and probably plotless. Possibly AU- I take liberal amounts of artistic licence and sprinkle it around here.

* * *

**Giving up the demon.**

* * *

She supposed she should be grateful, really. The distance between them was entirely necessary for the continued success of her assignment. 

It would not do for her to have illusions above her station; she was, after all, a mere swordswoman, and a half-breed one at that.

She would not, could not hope to catch something so fragile in her hands, rough and battle-calloused as they were; herself far too rough for such sweetness.

Propriety must be observed, even at the risk of her lady's displeasure.

_I am to guard her. I am to protect her. She is my lady, and is not._

Even though she knew it to be true, the knowledge still sliced deep as any cut from any sword.

* * *

There was sadness there. Oceans of it, in melted-chocolate eyes. 

Her smile was as beautiful as a wax flower- delicately carved, a wonder to look upon, but inevitably fake.

She'd accepted that smile, and the aching loneliness behind it, as her lot in life.

Sometimes she wondered if it was her own demon blood that cursed her, or something else.

Whether or not she was cursed at all was never questioned.

* * *

There had been illicit moments, purloined and accepted with sweet guilt while her lady was asleep- the brush of her fingertips against tresses bird-plume soft; the sigh of whispering silk against her cheek, pressed to her lady in a way that denied all thoughts of respect, of duty; the warmth of a body, cradled against hers to seek warmth from the nights cold. 

And once, so cruelly, the feel of bare flesh curled against her, trembling in her arms, the hiss of moonlit night over still-bleeding wounds, and the caress of that voice, like fingers stroked through feathers-

_You look like an angel._

Such stolen treasure she hoarded carefully, each moment remembered and kept like a pressed flower, a token of things unspoken- or more recently, as a scar.

* * *

It was neither of their faults, not really; her lady could never have known she would be cut so easily to ribbons from such a simple thing. 

It was not the kiss that bothered her- that simple brush of lips had quenched some thirst inside her she had not known existed.

The hunger that arose after however, awoke once that mouth had withdrawn from hers, that forbidden delight still hovering on her tongue, was inhuman, inhumane.

A kiss borne of necessity and unspoken, unacknowledged weakness had loosed a beast inside her; carefully reigned urges clamoured for attention in her belly, seething through her and setting her alight, ablaze.

She _ached_. For mortal flesh; for wet, slick skin sliding against wet, slick skin.

So shameful, and she, in those dark hours spent cursing sleepless moon, could not help but revel in that hot, dark yearning that crowded her blood.

This was _need_, and her lady could know nothing of it.

* * *

She plucked her quills when crippling _want_ overtook her and forced her from her futon. 

The small, sharp pain and the slippery blood on her fingers went some distance as a distraction, but was futile in the long run; her feathers always grew back.

One night, distant from them all and especially the girl that slept unassumingly in a shared dorm, she perched herself on the mountain side, watching her feathers float like snow on the breeze.

A memory, sharp and cold struck her then; in a fit of terrible rage and churning, torturous desire, she yanked every single one from her slender frame, and lay, bare and bloody and quivering in a nest of her own plumage.

She cried then, and cried more in the morning to see her feathers back, thicker than before.

_

* * *

I will protect you. I will protect you. I will die protecting you. _

The first time she failed her oaths, she tore the skin from her body in long, bloody strips; the second time she threw herself off a cliff, wings bound, to know failure in the shuddering, splintering _crunch_ of bone against immovable stone.

Each moment of fleeting pain – for demons, even half-breeds, were very difficult to kill- she savoured as punishment for failing her charge.

She would fail a dozen times more, and each time, her self-disgust sickened within her.

The last time she failed, her oaths battered and worn, was to give in.

There could be no resistance against her lady, not with such determination, and even as trembling hands reached for her, she knew there was no choice now; no choice but to succumb.

-(_we can't, we shouldn't, we CAN'T, but oh, oh, oh, we are- and I, I can't stop. Can't say no. Can't. She's my lady, and I can't say no. I can't say no...)-_

She spent that night wrapped in a sweet, warm body, soft hair tangled through her fingers, another's lips pressed against her own, ecstasy of touch warring with agony of duty betrayed.

That last night, her oaths frayed and weakened and eventually broken, Setsuna gave up the demon and took oaths anew.

_I will live for you, for only you; every breath for your life, all the strength in me to serve you._

_I will live protecting you._

Perhaps, in the way these oaths did not cut her like wire, there was hope for even one such as her.

She slept, and for the first night she had ever known, it was peaceful.

Half-awake, and shivering from the weight of half-whispered words, Konoka smiled.

* * *

Reviews appreciated.

:cuddles chibi-Set-chan doll:


End file.
